Pakistani militants sentenced to death

QUETTA, Pakistan, March 23 (UPI) -- Two Pakistanis connected with a 2005 bombing of a Shiite shrine in southwestern Pakistan, in which 47 people died, have been sentenced to death.

While Abdul Halim and Mohammad Aslam were sentenced to life in prison for the attack on the shrine in Fatehpur, 200 miles south of Quetta in Balochistan, they received a death sentence for another planned bomb attack, the BBC reported Wednesday.

Halim and Aslam were in a mosque assembling another bomb when they were arrested.

Three others who were involved in the Fatehpur attack were jailed for life.

Inspector General of Police Choudry Yaqub said four of the militants belonged to the Sunni militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba (Army of the Companions of the Prophet), which Pakistan banned in 2002.

He added that the militants had been trained in Afghanistan and that two of them had fought alongside the Taliban.

Thousands of people had gathered for a traditional feast in Fatehpur on March 19, 2005, when the bomb exploded. A second bomb also was found, but was removed safely.